


September, 1998

by JJK



Series: Life, Interrupted [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Implications of alcoholism, M/M, Multi, self depricating grantaire, time traveler's wife au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJK/pseuds/JJK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were many things in life that Grantaire didn’t get to choose: he didn’t have a choice in being plucked from the present and thrown across time; he didn’t have a choice about being abruptly thrust into his past or future, naked as the day he was born; he didn’t choose to repeatedly visit the very worst moments of his life. But meeting some preppy college kids, who were bound to hate him? That he did have a choice in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	September, 1998

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to try and write this in some semblance of an order, I promise. But then I decided it would be more organic (and there would be less time between posts) if I just wrote whichever scenes I felt most inspired to write, no matter in which order that may turn out to be. Hopefully it won't be too confusing.

_September, 1998 (Enjolras is 23, Grantaire is 26)_  


Grantaire was never going to get used to that way Enjolras was looking at him. There was no way he was deserving of a look that full of _love_ and _wonder_ and… _expectation_. Grantaire knew he was nothing special to look at. He was far too wonky and crooked to be conventionally attractive. A broken nose, a broken jaw, teeth that had never been aligned because wearing a retainer proved too impossible (he couldn’t take anything with him when he Travelled and after having it ripped mercilessly from his mouth for the second time, he had decided that crooked teeth were better than risking having all of his teeth pulled out). He drank too much and ate the wrong foods to be obviously toned but his life frequently depended on being able to outrun whatever was chasing him, so he was fit by necessity. That didn’t stop his knees from being knobbly, however, or his feet from being unappealingly bony, or the little finger on his left hand from being hopelessly crooked. And then there was his haze of dark curls that refused to be tamed. And eyes that looked tired no matter how much sleep he got. No, Grantaire was well aware of what he looked like, and that it wasn’t a particularly attractive sight. Which he why he felt so uncomfortable under Enjolras’ gaze.  


But it wasn’t just fact that this golden god curled up at his breakfast bar was like the manifestation of beauty itself, and a thousand miles out of his league. The look he kept shooting him, in between sentence breaks as he scribbled away notes from an intelligent looking text book, was so _knowing_. Like he’d known Grantaire all his life. The even stranger thing was that he probably had.  


“I was beginning to worry you were never going to wake up.” Enjolras told him, displaying no such indicated worry in his voice. “I made coffee.” He added, finishing a sentence with a flourish. “Although that was a few hours, so it’ll be cold.”  


Grantaire ignored Enjolras’ thinly veiled reprimand of him sleeping in late.  


“And your machine is completely counter intuitive,” he continued, replacing the lid on his pen and gently folding closed the glossy hardback cover of his textbook. “I don’t know what happened, but I think it’s broken. So we’ll have to go out if you want some.”  


Grantaire snorted a half laugh and rolled across the thin lumpy mattress of his fold out sofa bed and grinned up at Enjolras.  


“Sounds like you’re trying to get me out of bed.”  


“Well if I don’t, I have a feeling you’d stay in it all day.”  


“You know me too well,” Grantaire replied airily.  


In all honesty there was nothing he wanted more than to stay in bed all day, especially if there was a possibility of Enjolras joining him. But despite the fact that Enjolras seemed to have known him for years, Grantaire had barely known him for a week and he wasn’t about to push his luck.  


“Coffee sounds good,” he said swinging his legs off the edge of the bed and running his hands through his hair.  


Grantaire’s apartment was small. Tiny really. The sofa, once pulled out into a bed, filled the floor space of the living room area and the kitchen and breakfast bar took up the rest. Every flat surface was covered in books and empty bottles, canvases and art supplies, with abandoned clothes filling in the gaps. Grantaire didn’t much care for his apartment. It stopped his books from getting rained on, and that was about as far as his appreciation went. But at that moment he appreciated how small it was. Once stood up he only had to take half a pace forwards to clash his lips against the brilliant blonde at his breakfast bar, and really, what could be better than that?  


To his credit Enjolras didn’t shy away from Grantaire’s horrible morning breath. Instead a hand moved to tangle itself in his curls whilst another brushed against his bare hip, holding him in place, drinking him in. Enjolras’ hips lifted themselves off the stool as he pressed himself against Grantaire kissing with an intensity the likes of which took Grantaire by surprise. He gasped into Enjolras’ open mouth, heart hammering furiously somewhere behind his ears.  


“Sorry,” Enjolras murmured, resting his forehead against Grantaire’s.  


“No, no,” Grantaire shook his head, his breath still eluding him slightly. _Don’t ever apologise for a kiss like that._ “Don’t be,” he ran a hand up Enjolras’ back, under the smooth fabric of his tee-shirt, against his taught, warm skin.  


Enjolras’ arched his back appreciatively, pushing himself closer into Grantaire. “I want you to meet my friends.” he said quietly, hands still framing Grantaire’s face, foreheads still pressed together.  


Grantaire tensed as a rising panic swelled within him, threatening to flood the apartment. He didn’t cope all that well with commitment, and was already struggled to regale the fact that Enjolras was going to be a big part of his future. That he’d let slip they might end up _married_ one day was just…beyond…  


Prior to this his longest commitment was to the on-again-off-again stint with Montparnasse which had been less of a relationship and more of a recurring nightmare.  


“You don’t really have a choice,” Enjolras said coyly, circling Grantaire’s wrists with his fingers.  


It was the worst thing he could have said.  


Grantaire stumbled backwards; suddenly hating the closeness of his apartment, the walls felt like they were closing in and Enjolras’ presence seemed to be growing as a dizzying nauseous wave of anxiety washed over him.  


There were many things in life that Grantaire didn’t get to choose: he didn’t have a choice in being plucked from the present and thrown across time; he didn’t have a choice about being abruptly thrust into his past or future, naked as the day he was born; he didn’t choose to repeatedly visit the very worst moments of his life. But meeting some preppy college kids, who were bound to hate him? That he did have a choice in.  


He sat down on the bed with a thump and tried to vocalise some of his thoughts.  


“Don’t you think it’s a little soon?” he managed.  


“Soon?” Now it was Enjolras’ turn to look taken aback. “I’ve been keeping you a secret for practically my entire life. I couldn’t tell my parents, I couldn’t tell my friends. I had to endure being called every name imaginable because I didn’t show any interesting in dating anyone throughout school. They didn’t understand that it was you. It has _always been you_. I spent that last five years of my life wondering and waiting for the day I might see you again. Never knowing how long it would have to be. And now you’re here and I.” He was looming towards Grantaire, proportions still skewed by the nauseous paranoia before he suddenly shrunk back to normal size and knelt before Grantaire. “You’re here.” He hands were everywhere, touching oh so tentatively. “ _Here_.” Enjolras moved between Grantaire’s legs to rest his head against his chest. “And I finally get to tell people and show you off. This isn’t soon; this is seventeen years in the making.”  


Grantaire swallowed the dry lump in his throat. That still didn’t mean Enjolras’ friends were going to like him. He wasn’t exactly the sort of person you took him to meet your parents. Or college friends for that matter. He was an obnoxious drunk, without drive, who took a painfully cynical view of the world and didn’t care who knew about it. Not to mention he had a tendency to fucking disappear into thin air.  


He didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until he saw Enjolras’ face peering up at him; pained and…disappointed.  


Clearly Grantaire was a poor copy of whatever future self Enjolras was used to meeting in the meadow, or wherever it was he’d said.  


“We’ll keep it informal,” Enjolras said softly, moving a hand to cup Grantaire’s jaw. His knees must have been aching, pressed against the solid wooden floor, but he didn’t seem to care. “There’s a bar that Courfeyrac’s been trying to get me to go to all year, I think you’d like it – I still,” he shook his head. “I still can’t believe I’ve been in the same city as you for a whole year without meeting you.”  


“It’s not that surprising,” Grantaire replied stiffly, completely unsure how to deal with the mix of conflicting emotions vying for prominence in his mind. “I doubt we move in the same circles.” He brought his hand up to cover Enjolras’ and tried to smile. He could survive and evening at a bar couldn’t he? Why was he making such a big deal about this? Why was he ruining things before they’d even begun?  


-  


He may have reconciled himself to an evening feeling wholly out of his league, but he wasn’t going to face it completely outnumbered. Which was why he’d invited Jehan. Enjolras didn’t mind, he’d actually suggested inviting someone else to make it feel less like an interrogation – which apparently, with Courfeyrac there, it was likely to be. To his utter dismay, however, Jehan seemed to have sided with Enjolras’ friends.  


“It was love at first sight!” he gushed, in response to Courfeyrac’s question about how he and Enjolras had met. Grantaire looked away shaking his head and downing the remainder of his glass. Clearly the little poet has misread Enjolras’ recognition of Grantaire as his not-so-imaginary-childhood-friend as his soul’s recognition of its mate and was heartily revealing all the little details that Courfeyrac, for some reason, so desperately wanted to know about how they’d run into each other at the library. “Grantaire is the only one who really understands the filing system,” he was explaining, leaning close to Courfeyrac and casting furtive conspiratorial glances over at Grantaire. It would have been cute if Grantaire wasn’t already so tightly wound.  


He pushed out of his chair to go and fetch another drink from the bar, sprawling against it whilst he waited. A hand pressed into the small of his back, he twisted to see Enjolras beaming at him.  


“Are you alright?”  


“Fine,” he smiled, leaning towards Enjolras and receiving a chaste kiss for his effort. “They’re a nice group,” he said, nodding towards the table where Enjolras’ friends, and Jehan, were still gossiping about the pair of them. “Combeferre knows doesn’t he?”  


The knowing smile that had crossed the spectacled man’s lips when Enjolras had introduced Grantaire, hadn’t escaped his notice.  


Enjolras almost looked embarrassed. Almost. “I don’t keep secrets from Combeferre.”  


“How much does he know?”  


“An abridged version. I’m not sure how much he believes though. Do you mind?”  


Grantaire glanced over Enjolras’ shoulder and watched Combeferre smiling with an affable tolerance as Courfeyrac gestured wildly with his arms. Grantaire usually kept his condition a closely guarded secret and was stringent, wherever possible, with who knew. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind in the least if Combeferre was included in that number. He seemed like someone who could be trusted, more than that, in fact; he was someone Grantaire _wanted_ to trust. He somehow felt safer knowing Combeferre knew. Not that that made any sense. His drink arrived and he downed it straight, blinking through the fuzzy mess of this thoughts.  


“No.” Finally managed to vocalise, trying to convey how genuinely he meant it.  


“Thank you.”  


Grantaire nodded, distractedly. A familiar and unwelcome pressure was building behind his temples. Perhaps that last drink had been a mistake; he’d been on tenterhooks the whole evening, despite how well it seemed to be going. And now, and now…  


“Sorry,” he breathed, pressing a messy kiss to Enjolras’ cheek before making a dash for the men’s room.  


Enjolras chased after him.  


The door for the end stall was closed but not locked. Hesitantly he pushed it open and his heart sank as he saw the abject pile of clothes on the tiled floor. It was what he’d been expecting, but it didn’t make it any less disappointing.


End file.
